Reaper's Gale

‘Goddess, you have grown bitter and crabby in your old age,’ Gothos said.

‘It is no surprise,’ she replied. ‘I made the mistake of trying to save Kurald Emurlahn.’

‘Why bother?’ Mael asked her.

Kilmandaros bared jagged teeth. ‘The precedent is… unwelcome. You go bury your head in the sands again, Mael, but I warn you, the death of one realm is a promise to every other realm.’

‘As you say,’ the Elder God said after a moment. ‘And I do concede that possibility. In any case, Gothos demands recompense.’

The fists unclenched, then clenched again. ‘Very well. Now, Jaghut, fashion a Fi

‘This will do,’ Gothos said, drawing an object into view from a tear in his ragged shirt.

The two Elders stared at it for a time, then Mael grunted. ‘Yes, I see, now. Rather curious choice, Gothos.’

‘The only kind I make,’ the Jaghut replied. ‘Go on, then, Kilmandaros, proceed with your subtle conclusion to the Soletaken’s pathetic existence.’

The dragon hissed, screamed in rage and fear as the Elder Goddess advanced.

When she drove a fist into Scabandari’s skull, centred on the ridge between and above the draconic eyes, the crack of the thick bone rang like a dirge down the length of the crevasse, and with the impact blood spurted from t he Goddess’s knuckles.

The dragon’s broken head thumped heavily onto the broken bedrock, fluids spilling out from beneath the sagging body.

Kilmandaros wheeled to face Gothos.

He nodded. ‘I have the poor bastard.’

Mael stepped towards the Jaghut, holding out a hand. ‘I will take the Fi

‘No.’

Both Elders now faced Gothos, who smiled once more. ‘Repayment of the debt. For each of you. I claim the Fi

‘What do you intend to do with it?’ Mael demanded.

‘I have not yet decided, but I assure you, it will be most curiously unpleasant.’

Kilmandaros made fists again with her hands and half raised them. ‘I am tempted, Jaghut, to send my children after you.’

‘Too bad they’ve lost their way, then.’

Neither Elder said another word as Gothos departed from the fissure. It always pleased him, outwitting doddering old wrecks and all their hoary, brutal power. Well, a momentary pleasure, in any case.

The best kind.

Upon her return to the rent, Kilmandaros found another figure standing before it. Black-cloaked, white-haired. An expression of arched contemplation, fixed upon the torn fissure.

About to enter the gate, or waiting for her? The Elder Goddess scowled. ‘You are not welcome in Kurald Emurlahn,’ she said.

Anomandaris Purake settled cool eyes upon the monstrous creature. ‘Do you imagine I contemplate claiming the throne for myself?’

‘You would not be the first.’

He faced the rent again. ‘You are besieged, Kilmandaros, and Edgewalker is committed elsewhere. I offer you my help.’

‘With you, Tiste Andii, my trust is not easily earned.’

‘Unjustified,’ he replied. ‘Unlike many others of my kind, I accept that the rewards of betrayal are never sufficient to overwhelm the cost. There are Soletaken now, in addition to feral dragons, warring in Kurald Emurlahn.’

‘Where is Osserc?’ the Elder Goddess asked. ‘Mael informed me that he-’

‘Was pla

‘And Scabandari’s betrayal of your brother? You have no desire to avenge that?’

Anomandaris glanced at her, then gave her a faint smile. ‘The rewards of betrayal. The cost to Scabandari proved high, didn’t it? As for Silchas, well, even the Azath do not last for ever. I almost envy him his new-found isolation from all that will afflict us in the mille

‘Indeed. Do you wish to join him in a similar barrow?’

‘I think not.’

‘Then I imagine that Silchas Ruin will not be inclined to forgive you your indifference, the day he is freed.’

‘You might be surprised, Kilmandaros.’

‘You and your kind are mysteries to me, Anomandaris Purake.’

‘I know. So, Goddess, have we a pact?’

She cocked her head. ‘I mean to drive the pretenders from the realm-if Kurald Emurlahn must die, then let it do so on its own.’

‘In other words, you want to leave the Throne of Shadow unoccupied.’

‘Yes.’

He thought for a time, then he nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘Do not wrong me, Soletaken.’

‘I shall not. Are you ready, Kilmandaros?’

‘They will forge alliances,’ she said. ‘They will all war against us.’

Anomandaris shrugged. ‘I have nothing better to do today.’

The two Ascendants then walked through the gate, and, together, they closed the rent behind them. There were other paths, after all, to this realm. Paths that were not wounds.

Arriving within Kurald Emurlahn, they looked upon a ravaged world.

Then set about cleansing what was left of it.

Preda Bivatt, a captain in the Drene Garrison, was far from home. Twenty-one days by wagon, commanding an expedition of two hundred soldiers of the Tattered Ba

When she reached the rise the wind struck her a hammer blow to her chest, as if eager to fling her back, to scrape her from this battered lip of land. The ocean beyond the ridge was a vision from an artist’s nightmare, a seascape torn, churning, with heavy twisting clouds shredding apart overhead. The water was more white than blue-green, foam boiling, spume flying out from between rocks as the waves pounded the shore.

Yet, she saw with a chill rushing in to bludgeon her bones, this was the place.

A fisher boat, blown well off course, into the deadly maelstrom that was this stretch of ocean, a stretch that no trader ship, no matter how large, would willingly venture into. A stretch that had, eighty years ago, caught a Meckros City and had torn it to pieces, pulling into the depths twenty thousand or more dwellers of that floating settlement.

The fisher crew had survived, long enough to draw their beleaguered craft safely aground in hip-deep water thirty or so paces from the bedrock strand. Catch lost, their boat punched into kindling by relentless waves, the four Letherii managed to reach dry land.

To find… this.

Tightening the strap of her helm, lest the wind tear it and her head from her shoulders, Preda Bivatt continued sca

– War canoes. The seagoing kind, each as long as a coral-face whale, high-prowed, longer and broader of beam than Tiste Edur craft. Not flung ashore as wreckage-no, not one she could see displayed anything like damage. They were drawn up in rows high along the beach, although it was clear that that had happened some time past-months at least, perhaps years.

A presence at her side. The merchant from Drene who had been contracted to supply this expedition. Pale-ski